Sunday, January 18, 2009

Totally OT!









Here is who has come to live with us for awhile. His name is Aspen. He is a Snowleopard Bengal. A bit ago as many of you know (all my fiend friends from Fablo's blog); I went barking mad and decided to become a foster mother for the Bengal Rescue Society. After much encouragement from Lorraine; I decided I could do this.

I wish you could see his fur in real life; it's silver (literally shiny like tiny silver threads throughout) He is gorgeous and loving as all get out. He will head butt you so hard and meow and purr and chirp the entire time you are with him. He's just met us; but you'd think we'd had him since he was a baby. He's the most wondeful animal! He came with two beds and his own blankie. Anyone want to take him to their forever home???

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Moondance part II



The gal that commissioned Moondance liked it so well she had me design a quilt for her neice. Very simple design incorporating the flag t-shirt that she wore to all this neice's softball games.



The quilt measures 4'H x 43"W. The quilt back was made entirely from a fleece jacket the woman wore on camping trips. It had special sigificance for this family member so I wanted to keep it tact as much as possible. I had to use fusible interfacing on each peice and resew it back together leaving the buttoned up sections joined.



She also requested 4 separate pillows 20" each. for additional family members. The Scooby fabric was required so for each pillow I tried to make them somewhat color coordiated. On the back she requested I write a saying for each person & include their name and use the 'tye dye' flag material we had left over from the back of her quilt.









Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Latest Commission

In September of last year; I received a contact through a mutual friend. A lady she had met at a quilt camp was looking for someone who would take her families six wedding dresses and turn them into something else. I contacted the lady and we agreed to meet up and discuss what she wanted and what she had.

For the purposes of this blog; I won't go into lengthy detail about the planning stages & so forth. Suffice it to say I created a few designs & she picked one. I was to make 4 separate wall hangings using the materials from each of the dresses.

The deconstruction of those dresses took the longest and I will remember that should more commissions like this one come about (which would be wonderfully fun!)

The dress materials then had to be prepared using either (and most often both) fusible interfacing and wonder under. Due to the nature of the fabrics this was imperative I assure you. I felt rather like Charlie Chaplin when I was trying to iron on the fusible interfacing as I'd get one section held down with the iron the rest of the material rush off the other end of the ironing board and puddle unmercifully onto the floor mocking my attempts to be neat.

I had to enlarge my design onto freezer paper, then create a pattern off of it using tissue paper. I then cut out each bird section. I had six pieces of fabric (one section from each dress) and would then cut sections of each bird from each piece of material ensuring that each wall hanging would incorporate parts of each dress.

Once it was all fused down to the grey silk; I stitched it all down and added the background quilting. The sections that looks like trees is actually the bodice lace from one of the gowns. I removed it from it's backing; tea stained it and cut it in sections that I then couched down. Lastly, I took the assorted pearls; beads and satin covered buttons (there were 43 on one dress!)and added the embellishments.

On the backs(sorry for the bad picture); there is a pocket on each one; enclosed in it is the 'legend' which has the wedding pictures of each couple, their names and their wedding dates. I had them laminated on vellum.

I'm only sharing the photos of one whole one and not all 4 to eliminate the repetition(though they are each different in subtle ways).

I only wish I was better at photography, the silk reflection really is hard to deal with when trying to get nice shots. Even with my daughters new Canon Rebel EOS, blah, blah, blah, it was so much camera! I mean really; I try to aspire to be good at one thing, quilting... Do I need to be a professional photographer too? Obviously not; I will gladly pay someone next time.

Finished size was 24" x 36" roughly.